New World
by Lady of the Phoenix
Summary: For Karkat it's wonderful at first. The world they come into isn't anything like what he's ever known. There is no one there to judge him for being born with an unfortunate blood color. But things change after Gamzee disappears and John takes it upon himself to help Karkat out.


Author's Notes: So when I agreed to make a prize for the GamKat holiday contest, I wasn't expecting what our first place winner, deviantart user wolfspiritlash, was going to request as a prize. I thought I was going to get a Gamkar prompt. Instead I was asked, rather sheepishly (and adorably) for some JohnKat. Now those of you who know my Homestuck work know that I've never done JohnKat. What you DON'T know is that JohnKat was my first ship (no comments judging me please). It wasn't until much later and my getting into Gamkar that I started to write Homestuck fic, though, so I never really gave JohnKat a going over with my own brush. I seek to alleviate that now in my own way, though only in short story form.

* * *

New World

At first it's wonderful. The world they come into isn't anything like what he's ever known. There is no one there to judge him for being born with an unfortunate blood color. No one to ridicule him because he doesn't like to wear his short life on his sleeve. No one to judge him for how badly he failed as a leader. No lives that rested in his hands, no deaths that marked him as a failure. There were no places that made him remember what happened back in the days when they'd been players in a game on a scale that no one but them could understand. How could there be, after all, when he was here on an Earth that wasn't an Earth at all

There were no faces that reminded him either, but that was for an entirely different reason.

When they'd stepped through the door after the victor in the human Alpha session, things had gotten complicated. The humans had made a new world, one of peace and plenty and of both humans and trolls. It was a kindness that Karkat would never forget, but things had gotten complex long before that. They had gotten complex when the Jane human had tapped into her life powers and healed their dead friends using the bodies that Gamzee had saved. To say it was tense to have a sober, depressed, guilty Gamzee in the same dimension as Nepeta would have been the fucking understatement of the eon. No better had been the tension between Kanaya and Eridan. Sure, Eridan had apparently managed to apologize to Feferi in the bubbles and make things better between them, but Karkat didn't think that either Kanaya or Eridan had forgiven the other for their death. Tavros and Vriska had been okay with each other, Sollux had been more mellowed out, and Aradia the same fun loving troll Karkat had met on the meteor after she'd come back from the dead as a god.

Needless to say when it was suggested that people go their own ways, keeping in contact through the old methods, no one had turned it down. Karkat, charged with keeping Gamzee sane, had been given little choice but to let the others leave them behind, settling down in a relatively abandoned area to take care of his moirail.

That had been three sweeps ago. He hadn't seen Gamzee in two of those. One night he'd awoken to find the clown gone, never to be heard from by their team again. There had been attempts to find him, of course, but they hadn't gone much of anywhere. Most of the other trolls were happy not to have to deal with him, there had been no mysterious murders, and for all but Aradia and Vriska it was hard for them to get around easily without resorting to one of the forms of transportation more common to this new world, Earternia. No, it had been the eight humans who had stepped up then, their god tier status allowing them to cover large distances easily. But most of them had backed out at various points of along the way. Jane had been the first to back out of the thing, apparently never having been comfortable with the juggalo. Dave got bored when Terezi had and returned to his life of ironic douchebaggery. Jake had been the next to go, mentioning something about wilds to tame, followed swiftly by Roxy disappearing into an alcohol induced recovery from memories of the terrors they had known.

In the end it came down to him, Jade and John searching for the wayward juggalo. Even Jade had given up at one point, for all that her space powers had meant that she could go anywhere anywhen. When she declared that it was pointless, fruitless to even bother searching for a troll who had no intention of being found, Karkat had all but fallen apart. Flopped down onto the ground, speechless, thoughtless, unable to move and barely able to breathe when it came to it. Jade had gone then, disappeared in a flash. Which left only John, hovering just inches off of the ground has he always did. Five minutes, ten minutes, an hour and finally John wasn't having it anymore. Before Karkat could even react he was being buoyed up on a cushion of air.

Karkat didn't really remember much after the shouting match ended. There really wasn't much point arguing with a person that literally amounted to a god. Especially one who controlled the aspect of wind. It was as if his words never made it to the grinning fool. Like the wind snatched away his furious ranting. So there was nothing he could do except give in at the end. Not that John gave him much choice. What amounted to a 'gentle' bonk from the Warhammer of Zillyho, and Karkat was out for the count. He awoke the next night in the comfort of his secluded hive. There had been a supply of food he hadn't remembered acquiring, his bed had been clean and made, everything had been tidy, and there had even been a batch of those wonderful chocolate cupcakes he loved.

He'd eaten three cupcakes then returned to sleep, too tired and sad to face the world.

Sleep hadn't been too lasting, though. He was out maybe only ten hours when there was a noise that woke him. A rattling mixed with an odd humming that could mean only one thing. Karkat cracked his eyes open, took in the sight of John fiddling with something in his food preparation block. It was something he wasn't really ready to deal with. Not that he had much of a chance to do more than close his eyes once more. Once again he was being lifted up on a ball of wind, and John was laughing uproariously. Stupid fucking human never understood what was really amusing. Had his fucking retarded ideas as to what was funny, which wasn't even half of what he thought was.

John had spent ten minutes lecturing him on how he had to keep going on because that was what Gamzee would want for him to be. He talked, kept talking, yammering, prattling on mindlessly until there was nothing Karkat could do but agree to shut the damn human up. Which was a mistake. John had smiled, wide and unrelenting, and applauded him for making a good decision. As he swept out of Karkat's hive he promised that he'd be back in two human weeks. Karkat had unwittingly agreed to letting John come visit regularly.

So John came back two human weeks later, floating into the house with his arms laden with bags of food. When Karkat had complained John had pointed out that Karkat had agreed to John checking in on him, bringing him food, helping him through this 'trying time.' Karkat had grit his teeth and put up with John's presence. He revealed in the fresh cooked meal John whipped up—he hadn't had the spirit to make more than the cheap human noodles with cheese from a box that Gamzee had so loved—took it in silence as John tidied, and even accepted a pair of cupcakes that were forced on him. Karkat even sat there, patiently and silently, as John sat down and made him sit through some shitty movie called Con Air. When it was over, he even agreed to letting John come back in another two weeks to check up on him.

It continued like that for two whole sweeps, and Karkat wasn't quite sure what that meant now. Over that time he'd gotten used to John being there, to the hot meals, the shitty but somehow moving movies, to the cupcakes and friendship that he so eagerly offered. Eventually movies moved from the couch to a pile of pillows. Meals stopped being across a table and shared side by side instead. John started to feed Karkat cupcakes in chunks from his hands, for all that Karkat was annoyed at him for it. And not once had John missed his agreed upon visiting Karkat, laden down with grocery supplies, shitty movies, and friendship.

Until today. It was nearly sundown and John had yet to literally blow into the hive. Karkat had been waiting since sunup, knowing that the young human would show up around noon. Then nothing. No tell-tale breeze, no blasts of wind, no sign of a speck on the horizon growing ever closer. No John. Karkat sat on his outdoor welcoming block until sundown, waiting for any of the normal signs of John's approach. In the end he'd gone inside, shut the door, and pretended that he didn't feel a kind of ache in his chest that reminded him of when Gamzee had gone missing.

John didn't show up the next day.

Or the next.

By the third day without John, Karkat locked the door and stopped caring. It wasn't as if he'd ever really wanted John hanging around him for four human years. He was more put upon by the presence of the human than anything else. All he'd wanted was to curl up and relax and put up with losing his moirail on his own. No one had asked the damn human to get involved in the first place. Okay, so maybe that wasn't entirely true. He had encouraged people to help him find juggalo. He had sent John off, agreeing to things without knowing what.

Karkat had brought this upon himself, and there was nothing that made that knowledge less painful. Didn't make it any less painful to know that John had abandoned him.

He tried that third night to make cupcakes for himself. They turned out, as they always did when he tried, burnt on the outside and pudding on the inside. They, along with every other thing John had left behind, were thrown out.

It was half a perigee before there was a knock on his door. Karkat ignored it. Eventually the knocks were joined by John's voice. Karkat ignored that too. And soon enough, maybe too soon, both sounds were gone and Karkat was left in silence.

Another half a perigee and the knocks came again. The voice too, louder. Karkat curled up under his pillow pile until they went away.

It was a full perigree before the noises returned and Karkat hid in his ablution trap.

The sounds didn't come back the next perigee, or the one after that, or the one after that. Karkat stayed alone in the quiet of his hive, leaving only when he had to for supplies. It was a quiet life, too much like what he'd known on Alternia. Except now there was no chance for company in his lusus. Trollian was frequently quiet with everyone going about their lives without him.

It was easier this way, he told himself every morning when he work. Easier not to rely on other people. They just hurt you in the end.

Then, four perigees after the last time he'd seen John there came a new knocking. Not the insistent, demanding, pressuring kind of knock that came from John. No, this was quieter, gentler, almost infinitely patient. If he had to guess, it would be Rose. Karkat fled to the hygiene block once again, crawled into his ablution trap, and tried to ignore it. Then another sound joined the first, not a voice, but new knocking, this hard, demanding, and a bit chaotic. That one, though, didn't last long. Just a few rounds, Rose's taps regular in the background, and then silence from the second knocking individual. Not that it meant he was left in peace. There was a sudden flash of virulent green that hew KNEW, and Jade was standing in the middle of the bathroom, clad in her full god-tier outfit, staring down at him angrily. She waved her hand through the air, a small motion that would have meant nothing for anyone else. But from her, a master of space, Karkat could only begin to guess what it meant. Especially since the other knocking had stopped. Jade had let Rose in. Oh yes, this was TOTALLY turning out to be the best day.

"And JUST how you going to explain your behavior, young man?" Jade demanded as Karkat noted the sound of footsteps elsewhere in his hive.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing here, Harley? Who gave you permission to pop into my house like some entitled fucking god?"

"I gave me permission. I help make the world, I get to go wherever I please. Especially when some stupid troll hurts my brother!"

"Fuck you, Harley. You don't even..." Karkat started to say, only to be cut off by the entrance of Rose to the hygiene block.

"We are more understanding of what is transpiring than you are," Rose said, looking at him with a look that screamed distaste. "Unlike you we have not run upon assumptions and have listened to John."

"You're not as understanding as you..."

"Shut up," Jade snarled. "You don't get to talk here. Rose gets that privilege. I'd do it myself but all I want to do is send you to the green sun for hurting John. But John said I'm not allowed to do that, so I'm here as backup for Rose. Got it?"

Karkat just nodded. He wasn't about to risk being sent to that place again.

"Thank you for your cooperation," Rose said, utterly patient and benevolent. "N ow come. It is hardly fitting to have this conversation while you're in the tub."

* * *

So he stands on John's doorstep, staring at it and not sure what to do. Everything in him, and the two females who had only hours before been threatening him in his own hive, said to knock. But there was still a part of him that was afraid of what it would mean. To go into this place, to see John, to apologize. Yes, an apology was necessary, from what Rose and Jade had said. It hadn't been John's fault that he hadn't shown up. No, just the fault of time and natural human frailty. After all, how would Karkat have handled it if his Lusus had gotten sick? And to think, he'd been leaving John on his own when John had finally come for support. What kind of friend did that make him?

But the question before him now was whether or not to knock. To admit that he had been a fool, bitter, stupid, or to walk away, risking Jade's vengeance but not caring?

Three raps is all he gives it. Sharp, rushed, a bit too afraid of what it would mean if the door opened.

And yet it does. Nearly immediately. He's faced with John, standing there, a look of confusion mixed with joy, mixed with sorrow.

"Hey," Karkat says, and it's all he can get out before John's arms are around him, holding him tighter than Gamzee's ever had.

There are words that he doesn't really hear. Tears that he can't really explain. And through it all the comforting sound of John's heart beat dancing in his head.

This, Karkat realized as he buried his head in John's shirt and mumbled his 'sorry's a hundred times, was what he'd been missing all these perigees. What he couldn't live without.

When John asks him into the house, Karkat says yes, and doesn't think that he'll ever want to leave it again.


End file.
